Edition 2: No. 20 Dear friends, For over two thousand years, Christian communities have thrived in The Holy Land. Suddenly there is a drastic plunge in their presence. From a historical level of nearly 18 percent, the figure is now somewhere less than 2 percent. Church leaders have forewarned that unless something serious is done…

NO TO MILITARY INTERVENTION IN SYRIA; NO TO MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRAN Dear friends, We have just seen this call from the International Movement for a Just World calling for signatures against military strikes in Iran and Syria. We urge all our readers to sign this petition which will send out…

Editorial comment Stirring up trouble is easy to do – putting out fires is much harder! Dear friends, Just two days ago, a court in Goa acquitted 40 persons for their role in Goa’s very first communal riot in 2006. The verdict was that there was not enough evidence to make the case. That is…

Edition 2: No. 18 Conscientious objector Noam Gur sentenced to prison for her refusal to join the Israeli Army A call to solidarity Palestine Update shares with subscribers this urgent action appeal. It is a call to stand in solidarity with Israeli conscientious objector Noam Gur…

Edition 2: No. 17 Debating Palestine: Representation, Resistance, and Liberation Dear friends, ‘Palestinians are debating multiple inter-connected questions, including the question of representation, what strategy or strategies to adopt for liberation, the nature of the future state, and their relationship with the Arab revolutions, among others’. In this challenging paper from ‘al shabaka’…

Edition 2: No. 16 photo: http://previous.presstv.ir/photo/20120115/movahedian20120115134328420.jpg Dear friends, Today is prisoners’ day in Palestine. Everyone from the Galilee to the Negev and from Jericho to Rafah remembers the sacrifices of hundreds of thousands of political prisoners held over the years and stands in solidarity with the thousands still…

Edition 2: No. 15 Arab Christians Denied Chance to observe Good Friday Dear friends, While many of us will have celebrated Easter as a joyful event and as a sign the victory of truth over death and destruction the news from Palestine is still dispiriting. Once more, Israeli authorities have denied thousands of Palestinians…

Edition 2: No. 14 Editorial comment Barghouti’s call to popular resistance- echoes from Gandhi and the freedom struggle in India! Dear friends, Marwan Barghouti’s call to initiate mass resistance does not sound too different from the call to civil disobedience that Mahatma Gandhi issued during the Indian struggle for independence. India’s freedom struggle underwent…

Edition 2: No. 13 Editorial comment Dear friends, There is one thing that has come to characterize the Israeli occupation- its shunning of moral standards. And that characterization stems from the nature of the occupation- illogical. Nothing can justify an attack on innocent civilian populations. Arbitrary and unfounded punishment of ‘the other’ can only…

Editorial comment The US claims that theirs is a humanitarian intervention in Syria is sheer gobbledegook! Dear friends, It goes without saying that most of what the media in general, and especially the western media, dishes out must be taken with the proverbial ‘pinch of salt’. Time after time, a…

Editorial comment BRICS – a protest or an alternative? The time has come for the rest of the world to tell the US and its allies that enough is enough. In some odd way the BRICS summit (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) has done just that. The alliance threatens to derail the way…

Editorial comment Dear friends, Two weeks ago, a two thousand strong crowd gathered at India Gate to demand the release of senior journalist Syed Mohammed Kazmi, who was arrested by the Delhi Police Special Cell in connection with last month’s blast outside the Israeli embassy in Delhi. “If he is…

Edition 2: No. 12 Editorial comment Dear friends, Ben White, a freelance writer and journalist has filed a report, “Happy Palestine Land Day: Israel Earmarks 10% of West Bank for Settlements” (Read full text at http://www.juancole.com/2012/03/happy-palestine-land-day-israel-earmarks-10-of-west-bank-for-settlements-white.html) that makes vital reading. White reports that the Israeli military has assigned ten percent of the land in the…

Edition 2: No. 11 Editorial Comment Dear friends, On 9th March 2012, Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street journal in which he inaccurately and mischievously lays blame for the plight of Palestinian Christians on Palestinian Muslims. This type of impish propaganda has been the routine practice of…

Edition 2: No. 10 Editorial comment Israel confronts a real peril from multiple forces within. On the one hand, there are reactionary elements that are intensely anti-democratic and racist. On the other, an increasing number of Israelis find the occupation suffocating and reject its unjust unconscionable patterns. Sherwood Ross, a Miami-based public relations consultant and director…

Editorial comment Dear friends, ‘There is clear and overwhelming evidence that the uprising to overthrow President Assad is a violent power grab led by foreign-supported fighters who have killed and wounded thousands of Syrian soldiers, police and civilians, partisans of the government and its peaceful opposition.’ There is a perverted…

Edition 2: No. 9 Editorial comment Gaza children and guiltless massacred “Gaza has been enduring Israeli policies of extermination and vandalism since June, 2006… Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into the largest concentration camp, reminiscent of Bergen Bilsen and Auschwits, with the largest population of prisoners in the world. The continuing international conspiracy of silence towards…

The West claims that they are afraid that Iran should never get its hands on nuclear weapons. They cite as their core objection that Iran is ruled by a monstrous regime that is capable of abusing such weapons. Is Iran being singled out only because it is a Muslim country?…

Edition 2: No. 8 Editorial comment Dear friends,In this issue of Palestine Update we share with you a perspective that is challenging to all those engaged in the search for an urgent and just settlement to the Question of Palestine.Alan Hart, a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent, writer and commentator on Middle east…